The introduction of the new metaphor flowline induced the news organization to break free from the old deadline regime, where the print product governed most parts of the organization, to a highly successful ‘online first’ production mode, that surprisingly benefits also the print production. Flowline is thus both a technological shift and a shift in mentality – and it is the latter that we throughout years of researching media organizations have seen newsrooms struggle with. A key for efficient organizing of the work flow in newsrooms is synchronized production and distribution – what we call flowline, rather than the differentiated and punctuated time frames of deadline production.
Do you need FLOWLINE?
Test yourself part I: Compare timelines
Print out the statistics for you daily digital traffic on different platforms (mobile, desktop, tablet) for weekdays and weekends. Example below.
Wednesday
Saturday
Sunday
Use an empty time line (download here) and fill in the level of activity throughout the day for:
- working hours (when are people at work)
- meetings (when are you in meetings)
- source contact (when are your source available)
- publication times (when are stories published on different platforms)?

Example of filled in timeline for when different kinds of sources are available.
Red=public sources
Green=sports/culture
Orange=students
Blue=people in general
Compare the different timelines. Is there correlation or discrepancy between when you publish and when you are being read? Are you stuck in meetings when your sources are avilable to you?
If the timelines add up: congratulations! You already have a well-adjusted production flow.
If not: check out here how to implement the Six Step process to go from deadline to flowline in your organization